Keller's Fedora (Kindle Single) Read Online Free PDF

picked the right man. Is that what you mean?”
    “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
    “So it would appear. And you have a point.”
    There was a pause, but this time he knew the line was intact. He could tell she was thinking.
    She said, “Okay, he’s gonna have to take our word for it. The thing is, you have to be positive. Because if the Marlboro Man turns out to be her brother Charlie, or some butch queen who dropped in to give her some advice on where to put the sofa—”
    “That wouldn’t be good.”
    “So check him out,” she said. “You don’t need evidence to show the client, just so long as you’re convinced. After that, you know what you have to do.”
    “Right.”
    “And you’re okay? Because it might be a while before he’s done in there.”
    His hand reached for the empty iced tea jar. “No problem,” he said. “I’m set.”
    K ELLER HAPPENED TO be looking at the garage door when it began its ascent. By then it was getting on for five in the afternoon, and he’d found himself thinking about the empty jar. It was a comfort to have it there, but the actual business of peeing in it was something he thought he’d put off as long as he could. He already felt conspicuous, sitting in a parked car on a street where few cars were parked. It helped that there was very little traffic, and no pedestrian traffic except for two boys, one of them dribbling a basketball, the other making a half-hearted attempt to get it away from him. They dribbled off down the street and turned at the corner, and neither of them gave Keller any notice.
    Still, there he was, with his license plate visible to any citizen who cared to make a note of it. Part of the time he wore the hat and part of the time he didn’t, but what difference did that make? It was off his head and on the seat beside him when the Overmont garage door went up, and that got his full attention. He waited for a glimpse of either or both of them, wishing they’d walk out arm in arm, pausing for a warm embrace and a quick grope before the guy got behind the wheel.
    But if that happened he never saw it, because all he could see from where he sat was the rear end of the white van, and it was too deep in the shadows for him to make out a license plate. Then the engine started up and the van backed out of the garage.
    By the time Keller got his engine started, the van had pulled out into the street, then turned and headed off in a direction opposite to the one Keller was facing. He had to turn around, and his quarry was already vanishing from sight, taking a left two blocks away.
    Keller set off after him.
    W HATEVER M ELANIA O VERMONT and her presumed lover had in common, it wasn’t a shared attitude toward traffic laws. She’d been a cinch to follow, always under the speed limit, pausing to give other drivers the right away, and acting at all times like a teenager determined to pass a driving test.
    Mr. Marlboro, on the other hand, was given to quick starts, sudden bursts of acceleration, abrupt left turns that forced oncoming drivers to hit the brakes, and showed a tendency to regard the speed limit as a minimum.
    On the highway, it was hard to keep up with the van. On Harding Boulevard, in rush-hour traffic, how were you supposed to distinguish one white van from all the others? A couple of times he thought he’d lost the trail, but then he’d pick it up again. After forty-five minutes of this, the white van sailed through an intersection even as the light was turning from amber to red. Keller, three cars back, didn’t even have a chance to run the red light, but did what he could to keep his man in sight.
    Was that him? Was he making a right turn?
    The light turned, finally, and the car immediately in front of Keller moved forward, finally, and Keller set off in search of the white van. A quarter of a mile along he turned where he thought the van might have turned, and found it parked in front of an establishment that sold wholesale and